Nietzsche's Dancers Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, and the Revaluation of Christian Values

by LaMothe, Kimerer L.

• ISBN13: 9781403968258
• ISBN10: 140396825X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-02-05
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

The Flight from Desire revises our understanding of love in literary texts from the high and late Middle Ages. Starting from the traditions of Augustine and Ovid, it traces the interplay of medieval theories about love with the unruly and uncontainable workings of desire. Individual chapters offer fresh readings of the letters of Abelard and Heloise, the Lais of Marie de France, the Roman de la Rose, Dante's Vita nuova, and the Troilus story told by Boccaccio and Chaucer. In these works, desire powerfully affects ideas of selfhood and social identity, the terms of moral judgment, and even the role of authorship.

Author Biography

Kimerer LaMothe was Professor of Religion, Harvard University, and is a dancer, choreographer, and independent scholar of religion and philosophy.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations	vii
Preface	ix
Introduction: Reading Nietzsche's Images of Dance	1	(18)
Part I Friedrich Nietzsche
First Steps	19	(28)
Free Spirits	47	(30)
Loving Life	77	(30)
Part II Isadora Duncan
A Dionysian Artist	107	(20)
Incarnating Faith	127	(24)
Part III Martha Graham
An Affirmation of Life	151	(20)
Athletes of God	171	(20)
Words to Dance	191	(28)
Conclusion: Another Ideal	219	(14)
Notes	233	(22)
Bibliography	255	(10)
Index	265